WHAT ``THINGS'' ARE WORTH

What are privately owned buildings, housing, machines, equipment and other ``things'' worth in the United States? The Department of Commerce has valued the gross stock of ``fixed reproducible tangible wealth'' at $14.4 trillion in 1988. That doesn't include land or inventories of nondepreciable goods.

Within that total, residential real estate was worth $6.4 trillion; agriculture, forestry, and fisheries assets $380 billion, mining $449 billion; manufacturing $1.7 trillion; transportation and public utilities $2.2 trillion; wholesale trade $329 billion; retail trade $523 billion; finance, insurance, and real estate $1.4 trillion; and services $727 billion.

In 1987, the total gross stock was worth $13.7 trillion in current dollars.

On top of these totals, government wealth amounts to $4.4 trillion and consumer durables $3.6 trillion.